Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(93)



Leander had found dead rats, the curist had said, their bodies unmarked. I wondered how many rats had been discovered dead inside the cathedral over the centuries, a few here, a few there, and no one had paid them any mind.

“We need to destroy it now,” the revenant said urgently. “Before it takes a human soul. That’s when it will have enough strength to leave the casket, and it will act soon. It almost certainly knows I’m here—”

It stopped at a faint sound. Somewhere in the cathedral, echoing, came the panicked cries of a raven.





TWENTY-FOUR


I was halfway to the chapel before I realized I had left the lantern behind in Leander’s room, but there was enough moonlight to see by, to take the stairs down from the gallery two at a time. A raven was flapping in circles above the pews. “Dead!” it screamed. “Dead!” Its shrill voice rang from the high, shadowed vault.

The stairs let me out into the transept. When I reached the nave, I drew up short. The sacristan lay collapsed at the center of the aisle, just shy of the sanctuary’s steps, in a heap of crimson velvet. His eyes were still open, his waxen face frozen in an expression of surprise. And behind the altar, an almost perfect match for my vision in the stable, stood Leander: his robes swallowed up by the dark, the casket in his hands. The altar’s slab had been pushed a few inches to the side, revealing a hint of the cavity where it had rested.

I drew my dagger. “Put it down.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he replied. He didn’t seem surprised to see me; there was no emotion in his voice at all. “I went to some effort to leave the procession unseen, and this might be my only chance. Do you understand how rarely the cathedral is empty? It’s a pity about the sacristan, though I never did like him.”

“Put it down,” I repeated, stepping over the body and onto the stairs.

“Are you going to fight me?” he asked, remote.

“Don’t,” the revenant interjected tightly. “Sarathiel is still confined to the ashes, but it’s nearly strong enough to escape. If there’s a struggle—if the casket falls…”

“If you do, you’ll win,” Leander admitted. Drawing closer, I realized I had been wrong about his lack of emotion. His hands were steady around the casket, but now I saw the strain in his eyes, vivid against his bruised face. He was trying his best to hide it, but he was afraid.

I mounted the last step and faced him across the altar. He took an immediate pace back, putting himself against the altarpiece. I stared at him, trying to figure out how to take the casket.

“Talk to him,” the revenant urged.

I raised my eyes to Leander’s face, at which he was unable to hide a flinch. I asked, “Why did you lie about what happened in the crypt?”

He swallowed, noticeable only by the slight movement of his collar. “The answer to that is complicated.” He hesitated. “The most practical reason, perhaps, was that I didn’t wish the death of any cleric who tried to apprehend you.”

“I’m not the one who’s been killing people.”

“What?” For an instant, he looked thrown. Then his face shuttered. “Believe what you like of me, but I’ve never used my relic to take a life.”

“I was talking about the Old Magic,” I said. “Or does murder only count if you commit it with your own hands?”

“You thought—” He broke off as though unable to finish. He glanced at the sacristan, then back at me. He began again, slowly, with a very strange expression on his face, “You thought I’ve been practicing Old Magic?”

I already knew he was a skilled liar, or at least he was talented at concealing the truth. I didn’t believe his act for a moment. But the revenant gave a forceful hiss, as though letting out a swear. “Nun, ask him if this is the first time he’s touched the casket.”

I repeated the question aloud, and Leander gave me the same narrow, piecing-things-together look he’d given the Divine earlier. “No,” he said carefully. “I examined it the night I returned to Bonsaint after you escaped from the harrow. I had been meaning to take a closer look at it for some time.” That was the night of the vision—the point at which he had started smelling of Old Magic. “I thought it was strange,” he went on, seeming to take my silence for permission to continue, “that all records pertaining to it seemed to have mysteriously vanished from the cathedral’s archives.”

Was that what I had seen in the vision? He hadn’t been practicing Old Magic. He had been straightening after touching the casket. Looking at it now, I noticed for the first time how firmly he was holding it shut.

“Do you know what’s inside?” I asked, not meaning the ashes.

He met my gaze. Beneath his forced calm, I saw a bottomless well of horror. “As of two nights ago, yes.”

“I was wrong,” the revenant said. “The smell of Old Magic has been coming from Sarathiel—from the ritual that nearly destroyed it. It’s been leaving a trace on everything it touches. It’s been in command of the spirits all along. The attack on Bonsaint may have been a response to the priest discovering its reliquary.”

Leander asked, “Is Rathanael saying something to you, or are you just thinking? I can’t tell. Your face is very hard to read.”

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